Don’t Look Up

Backword Dave notes, cogently:

I hate those in power. I look up, and others see the stars; I see the shit up our leader’s arses.

Since it’s National Poetry Month in America and there isn’t enough scurrilous Welsh Nationalist verse on the internet, I reproduce below the fold the poem to which Dave is alluding; “Anglomaniac Anthem” by Harri Webb

Anglomaniac Anthem

Here we crouch in our proper stations,
Obedient to her orders,
Though she’s in the shite she’ll see us right
If we earn her keep as warders,
So we’re looking up England’s arsehole
It’s the loveliest scene of all,
Yes we’re looking up England’s arsehole
Waiting for the manna to fall.

One of the most important themes in Harri Webb’s work was both the particularity and the universality of the Welsh struggle for nationhood; anyone who assumes that this poem is purely aimed at the “Anglo-Welsh” is making a big mistake. There are all sorts of “Englands” in the political and social sphere, and they are usually not short of people looking up their arseholes and claiming to see the Milky Way.